“Yeah? So it’s LA forever? Even with Iain and your sister in New York?”
“They visit often enough, and everyone else I love is here,” I said so breezily that I didn’t process exactly what just came out of my mouth till moments later.
“Well, that’s music to my ears. Cheers to that,” Engelman smiled broadly.
“Cheers,” I returned.
And somewhere in the next few minutes of conversation, my mind rewound to what I’d just said.
Everyone else I love is here.
Leaning back in the leather chair, I took a drink from my glass, pretending to listen to Engelman as I realized that it was entirely true.
Holland and Iain were in New York, but the rest of my world was here in LA. Everything I wanted and needed was right here. It always had been.
I just hadn’t realized that until the past couple of weeks.
Say it, you idiot, I told myself, goading myself to admit even in my own head what I knew I felt.
But it was a first. It was different than what I was born feeling for my family. It was brand new. Well, the realization was at least. Because something told me that the feelings I had for AJ had been there for years.
I just didn’t know what I was looking at.
“Go ahead and take the day off if I got you too drunk. I know your sister’s in town,” Engelman said as I got up to leave. I smirked.
“I appreciate it, but I’m not drunk,” I said, despite the fact that I did feel a buzzing in my veins and a risky question at the tip of my tongue. In my head, I knew it was wisest to keep it reined it.
But I didn’t care.
I’d already decided to ask her.
AJ
I was physically at my desk and I was talking to Deb.
But I wasn’t actually there.
My head was back in that fantasy world that felt too good to be true. It had honestly started Sunday at brunch, when Adam came to pick me up, and since then, I hadn’t quite left.
Then again, how could I really be expected to come back t
o the real world?
I’d just spent two consecutive nights at Adam’s, had the most mind-blowing sex of my life and then the biggest triumph of my career thus far.
I genuinely couldn’t remember the last time I felt this happy.
Of course, there was a petty part of me wishing I could’ve been listening in when Knox called Schilling and RTA to let them know he’d gone with Adam. But that was only a tiny sliver of my brain, because the truth was that I’d never felt the need to shove anything in Schilling’s face. The only way I had ever planned on getting my revenge was by living well. Being successful. Having clients I took care of, whose careers flourished because of me. The goal was to be happy, proud of myself.
I had never needed anything more than that.
But this victory with Knox?
Definitely a fun little bonus, I thought just as I watched several heads in The Pit—namely Liza’s and Kenzie’s—whip up at the same time.
Usually the sign that Adam was coming.
I smiled when I caught sight of him, and I thanked God that today, we had an excuse to be grinning at each other from well across the floor.